Friday, 21 September 2012

I feel like I should start this post with a
disclaimer about how much I love Dickens. I love Dickens more than a person
such as myself, a person who has really not read much of him at all, should
love him. I love his descriptions and his lengthy sentences. I love his
delicious but transparent character names. I love his London and his Londoners.
However, I have not always been so amorous towards Charles. My first encounter
with him was when I was 11 years old and I was forced to read Great Expectations for school. I don’t
know whose idea that was, but it was a terrible one. I couldn’t get through it
and ultimately I skipped so many large chunks of the novel that when it came to
in-class analysis I barely had a grasp of who Estelle was. I didn’t touch
Dickens again until the first year of my Undergraduate degree and all I had was
the memory of that initial painful encounter. On my second try though, I was
immediately in love.

I experienced a repeat of these events when
reading A Tale of Two Cities, because
my goodness does that book start slow. In the beginning you’re not really sure
who anyone is, and it’s difficult to grasp why the jumping around in time is
necessary or why we are supposed to care about the shoe-maker and his
frequently-fainting daughter. Then, suddenly, you’re on the last chapter and
unashamedly balling your eyes out because every character in this thing is
Just. So. Perfect. One of the best moments is when the formidable Madame
Therese Defarge comes face to face with Miss Pross, and though neither speaks
the others language, they have an interaction which is one of the most nail-biting
episodes I’ve ever read.

So, imagine my delight, when I recently
went to see The Dark Knight Rises and found that the film has pretty much the
same story as part of the book focused on the descent of France into the
revolution of 1789. The film and the book are tales of societies descending
into chaos. Both are trigged by reactions against the systems of power in
place, in France the poverty stricken peasants reacted against the rich
monarchy, everyone knows the “let them eat cake” line. In the film, the lower
classes of society, who are largely portrayed as criminals, react against the falsely
idolized figure of Harvey Dent at the instigation of Bane. My favourite thing
about discovering this link is that when you originally believe that Bane is
the son of Ra's al Ghul
that makes him the same character as Therese Defarge, the terrifying and
constantly knitting woman who incites violence everywhere she goes. There is
something about the image of Bane knitting that tickles me no end.

The main result of the connection between
these two storylines was that I spent the end of the film sobbing, as
Commissioner Gordon reads a quotation directly from the end of the book. I cried,
and was left trying to explain to my boyfriend and his mate why I was making
such a spectacle of myself in the local Vue cinema. One should not cry at
action films. One should cry,
however, at the gorgeous finale to A Tale
of Two Cities in which the character you least expect captures your heart
and then breaks it. Plus, if it’s good enough for Nolan, it’s good enough for
me.